Google is betting big on early adopters of Allo to boost user base

India assumes a lot of importance for Google, which is why it will bring the Google Assistant, which is part of Allo, in Hindi and other regional languagesGulveen Aulakh | ET Bureau | September 29, 2016, 11:49 IST

Image credit: ThinkstockGoogle will rely on early adopters in India to increase the user base of its newly launched chat app Allo, even as the search giant assured that messaging and chat apps will comply with government rules and regulations.

India assumes a lot of importance for Google, which is why it will bring the Google Assistant, which is part of Allo, in Hindi and other regional languages, besides looking at opportunities to integrate it in third-party apps, a top executive said.

“We comply with regulations, not just for Allo and Duo but for all our products. We have products in other countries as well and we comply with whatever is lawful, and here we do the same,” Amit Fulay, product lead for communications at Google, told ET in an exclusive conversation.

Google launched Allo in India last week, at a time when the Delhi High Court ordered the government and the telecom regulator to look at regulating messaging apps. The diktat came along with directions to WhatsApp to delete messages of users who choose to remove the app from their devices.

Fulay said all chats are encrypted and while a user’s chat history is saved until she chooses to delete it, a user can choose to have messages expire on their and the receiver’s devices after a certain time in the incognito mode. The company’s comments assuring of privacy and compliance with possible regulation come at a time when it is looking at India to drive early and long-term adoption of its new messaging and video calling platforms.

“India is a big user base for us, it’s at the cutting edge of messaging as users have pretty much leapfrogged desktop to mobile. So, that's our play with Allo and Duo, and we’re already seeing traction here.”

India and the US are the top two countries by users for video calling app Google Duo, which crossed 10 million downloads within a month of the global launch. The company expects similar traction for Allo but did not share the numbers.

Google intends to bring local language capability in chat app Allo over time, and will launch the Google Assistant in Hindi later this year. Google Assistant, a virtual assistant that chats with the user and offers Web-based solutions, will also be brought to other Google platforms including Google Home and Chrome.

The natural extension of the Assistant would be to third-party apps like Zomato, BookMyShow and several others in the utility space, who may want to include the chat bot for interacting with users wanting to use the apps for ordering food or booking tables at restaurants.